Many people learn information and concepts which are presented in auditory form, visually, or audio-visually. For example, information and concepts can be presented via written text, displays on a computer screen, and spoken words from an audio cassette. One such technology which exists is text to speech. Text to speech technology converts text inputted to a computer into speech. The user may then listen to the text instead, or in addition, to reading it. Such technology is helpful to visually impaired persons. An example of this technology is VIA VOICE, developed by International Business Machines Corporation. If the user wishes to simultaneously read and listen to the text, he may do so. However, with conventional text to speech technology, the text to speech system controls the speed and the position of what is read. Though the speed of the audio can be adjusted by users, it is a uniform setting. Likewise, the flow of the text converted to audio is linear and sequential from the top of the page to the bottom of the page. There is no way for users to control the audio reader according to their own reading of the text. The user may wish to read slower when difficult concepts are being portrayed or if the user is particularly interested in the portrayed information. The user may wish to read faster when familiar concepts are being portrayed or when the user wishes to only scan the information. The user may also wish to jump to different portions of the text, such as from the top of the page to the bottom of the page. But the user is not able to read in this manner with conventional text to speech methods. Thus, with the conventional text to speech technology, there is no ability to allow the user's reading to dictate the speed and position at which the text is converted to speech. The conventional method is thus inflexible and has utility limited to the simple speaking of text.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a method for allowing a user's reading to dictate the speed and position at which content is converted to audio in an audio reader. The method should be flexible and have a range of utilities. The present invention addresses such a need.